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Attractions

Love is prone to the pull of attractions;
beguiled by sight and a theatre of thoughts;
enamoured by touch and aroused reactions;
exposed to the pleasure of seductive sports.
Too easily flattered by beauty’s praise
love shines meekly through an innocent veil.
And through naive nuance sweet love displays
how subtle twist becomes a sordid tale.
Too eager to feel the stroke of success
love craves the press of an amorous hand;
the nonchalant nudge, the carefree caress
that stokes an embered fire; fuelled and fanned.
. Love unprotected is in poor defence…
. too easily subjected to false pretence.

To the reader: Love like gravity is an attractive force. And there begins a very short lesson on what physics calls the fundamental forces; four in total, with a fifth being pondered. Gravity is one of two universal forces that can be perceived in our daily interactions with the environment. The fundamental interaction of objects takes place on a dynamic field. As one object interacts with the field others respond to its changing influences; drawn to its impression.

To the poet: The gullibility of love as a weak agent is an irresistible theme; an attraction too hard for most poets to resist. We watch and then describe love’s vulnerability in terms that reflect one emotional influence over another. The lure of love draws heavily on a willing soul; and there seems little a poet can do to detach himself from the strong tug of pen to page.

Join the Journey

Author: Tim Grace

At the beginning of February 2010, I was at Brisbane Airport, in transit and on my way to Brunei. A hectic one-month work assignment was looming and I knew I would need some way of releasing my 'off task' thoughts. Fortunately, as it turns out, the airport bookshop had sold out of its copies of Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger died a few days earlier - 27/1/2010) - so, next to his empty plot was a copy of Shakespeare's Sonnets.
The seven hour flight to Brunei was the perfect length to finish all 154 sonnets. Obviously, there are some brilliant poems in amongst his life's work; but there are the occasional verses that leave you wondering. Read in a single sitting the sonnets collectively tell of an artist who was easily smitten by love, had an obsession with his mirrored image, was haunted by his increasing age and looming mortality. He often uses the changing seasons as a metaphor for these themes which are expressed in the context of a semi-rural environment.
While on assignment in Brunei, I resided at the Abdul Ruzaq serviced apartments and to escape the need to make a new eatery decision each night I surrendered my eating habits to the Charcoal Grill. At a table for one (and set for four) I usually settled into a routine consisting of menu selection, sonnet readings, dining; and to finish - a brewed coffee as the accompaniment to my own sonnet writing.